Career Centre for Contractors

Consultants starting a contractor business of their own are inevitably faced with a number of factors to consider and decisions to make: what contract rates to charge, which skills to highlight on their resume, which types of insurance to get, how to market their consulting skills, where to find their next client, and so on. Many of these are not really related to management consulting or any specific area of expertise on which they are trying to build their business.

Building a steady client base, often from scratch, maintaining relationships with past clients and industry contacts, and securing a steady stream of contract jobs is a challenge, both for consultants and other industry professionals who decide to go independent. This is why most consultants usually choose the safer option; stay with a consulting firm and never really test the waters of contract consulting. More often than not, this means missing out on new career opportunities, a chance to build a wider network of contacts, and expanding one's range of consulting skills and experience.

Starting an independent consulting business or even just taking on individual contract assignments between full-time jobs gets a lot easier when one has a place to go to look for one's next job or to get feedback and advice from professionals who already have some experience working as contractors under their belt. TopContractConsultant.com's job board and forum are places to go for both of these things.

To get you started, however, our Career Centre for Contractors attempts to address some of the issues independent consultants need to take into account when launching a new contractor business. You can read about these in the following articles: